September 22, 2010

Brew Methods has been around since January. An equally simple page, it provides a list of links to brewing instructions all over the web, for a variety of methods like press pots, Chemex, and siphon brewers.

May 03, 2010

I brought my little mini french press to Ethiopia with me, which is standard operating procedure. Also took along some whole bean roasted coffee, and just enough ground coffee to (I hoped) last me till I got to a grinder.

At breakfast the first day our whole group was together in Addis Ababa, one fellow broke out a funny looking paper pouch. That fellow turned out to be the since-crowned Danish Barista Champion, Søren Stiller Markussen. And that paper pouchy thing was THIS THING:

(Keep watching till he gets to the pouch!)

The Coffeebrewer. And it was awesome. Søren's company, Grower's Cup in Denmark, makes these little beauties. This is not product placement. This is just acknowledging the fact that this little pouchy thing that Søren brought saved our butts each and every morning of that trip. Sure we had french presses, and we even made a few. But so much easier to just let Søren break out the Coffeebrewers and pass around the goodness.

Cup quality, you ask? Perfectly good. Way, way better than anything you can get at the hotel in Dire Dawa, I will tell you that.

Of course we asked: Do you have a US distributor yet? Well... stay tuned. I'll let you know as soon as I do.

December 31, 2009

Here's part two of my visit to the CEL. And yes, I sing on this video, inspired by coffee. If you can't understand my hyper-excited babbling at the end, I'm saying, "Thanks Intelligentsia... Thanks Geoff Watts... Thanks Kenyan Coffee Producers!"

November 30, 2009

Now the first suggestion that there may be soap in your coffee is not altogether tongue-in-cheek. There very may well be. If you think you taste something funky in your coffee, you should always check for foreign agents first: is the brewer fully cleaned, rinsed out and seasoned with coffee? What about your cup? When is the last time you took a look at the interior of your grinder hopper? (This may not seem like a likely source of soapy tastes in a coffee shop, but many home brewers keep grinders on countertops where they can get all kinds of other food or cleaning products in them.) So, first make sure the soapy taste isn't actually soap.

Because if it's not, you have a different problem entirely. One that's just about as common as a bar of Ivory soap. Soapy tastes in coffee are a mark of underextraction.

Remember: underextraction is not the same thing as weak flavor. A coffee can be full strength or even extra-strong and still be underextracted. And it could be overextracted and yet still weak (that's way too common for me to even think about right now without getting grumpy.)

Underextraction refers to what percentage of the solubles in the ground coffee are ending up in your brew. Each compound in a coffee bean — and there are hundreds — has a different flavor. Since the different compounds extract (that is, dissolve into the brew) at different rates, that means that a coffee extracted quickly will taste differently than one that takes a long time.

If I extract just 1% of a hundred coffee beans, I will have a full bean's worth of solubles, but they will be all the same boring flavor from that first moment of extraction. If I could somehow extract 100% of one coffee bean (not technically possible, but play along), I would have the same amount of solubles, but a much more overextracted, bitter taste. In fact, it would taste like chewing on a coffee bean. The fact that chewing on a bean is generally not as pleasant as drinking a well-extracted cup of coffee shows us just how important a proper rate of extraction is. If it weren't important, we would all just eat coffee instead of drink it.

There are devices that measure extraction, the most interesting of which is the Extract MoJo. I recommend at least learning about this topic if you are a professional. But the best tool — for professional and enthusiasts alike — is always your tongue. Remember Daniel's mantra: Coffee should taste GOOD!

The ideal rate of extraction is right around 20% of each bean. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with strength! Only flavor. If you want stronger coffee, you should just get 20% from more beans... not go for a higher percentage. If you want weaker coffee, back off of the amount of coffee, but leave it at a 20% extraction rate.

Practically speaking, getting back to soapy coffee, if your coffee tastes soapy, the water needs to spend more time with the coffee, or the water needs to be hotter, or both. If you run water through coarsely-ground coffee in under 1 minute, for example, you will have underextracted, soapy coffee. Pour the water more slowly, or make the grind finer so the water has to work more slowly through the slurry. There are also, of course, other factors (like water composition, and many others) that can affect extraction rate.

Some other words people associate with the taste of underextracted coffees are sour, minerally, metallic. To me, it sometimes tastes like a piece of aluminum. This is all on my mind because yesterday I poured myself a Chemex a little too eagerly and a Kenyan coffee that has been kind to me all week suddenly tasted flat, soapy, and just plain bad.

Remember kids, Don't Do What "Danny Don't" Does. Make your coffee right. Leave the soap in the soapdish, and the coffee in the pot.

November 27, 2009

I wanted to do two things with my Coffee of the Week posts, acknowledge the best roasters, growers, importers, and baristas who enliven my every week, and to give myself a venue for spouting off on different topics. So while I have a desire to write about new and interesting things I haven't covered in the past, I'm just going to have to repeat myself this week: the Zoka Kirkland store is fantastic.

As I mentionedbefore, I have been going there quite a bit and have yet to get a single sub-par cup. Contrast this with another Seattle area coffee shop with a good reputation which will remain nameless where I went recently and had a terrible cup of coffee. This hasn't ever happened to me at Zoka. Everything is up to snuff every time. I don't even really think about it anymore. I just walk in, get my coffee, and walk out happy.

This week the coffee that made me happiest was a caffé macchiato I had there on a gloomy, rainy Tuesday afternoon.

I'm talking about a small, northwest-style macchiato that is served in a tulip cup with an ounce and a half of espresso and wet steamed milk poured to the brim. (Just to clear it up... since there are so many wildly different versions of the macchiato out there... a topic for another post.)
Kyle Glanville used to say that the macchiato was the purest expression of the barista's art. The espresso forms the biggest part of the flavor, and so your shots have to be perfect. There's no room for hiding less-than-delicious espresso like people sometimes do in a 16 ounce monster vanilla latte.

But a good macchiato is tougher than making a good espresso, because you also need to nail the milk just right. Put those two basic elements together in their most basic, naked form, and you have the macchiato. When a macchiato is bad, it's really bad; and when it's good, it's really good.

Well, my macchiato was really good. Once again I didn't get the barista's name, but everyone there has been great. I'm officially relocating to the west side of Lake Washington in about three days, so I suppose this will be the last time I write about Zoka Kirkland for a while. Certainly it makes coming out to this side of the lake to visit my family just a little bit more pleasurable. Thanks and kudos to them.

November 24, 2009

Yesterday I had some thoughts on having coffee on the road. This morning, here's a little snippet of my philosophy in action.

Aylwyn and I were heading out for our fourth straight day of meeting with committee members from coffee cooperatives in Harar, Ethiopia. I like to flatter myself that it's important work. But after a while, the goof factor takes over. So here's a little unedited glimpse into what I actually worry about when I make trips like this.

Notice the cool little blue-and-white three-wheel Bajaj taxis on the road. Also, incidentally, I mentioned before on this blog that my friend got sick. After watching this video a couple times, I realized that it was that very afternoon that Aylwyn went down for the count (not to arise again for at least four days). I'm thinking it was that egg "sandwich," because I never had a bite and I was fine.

I'll try to resume with some actually useful posts for y'all later in the day.

November 23, 2009

I travel a lot, and one of my constant concerns is where I can get a good cup of coffee on the road. You would think, considering what I do for a living, that I would be constantly surrounded by great coffee. But it's a perpetual surprise to find myself in situations where it's either bad coffee or no coffee at all.

I think we've all been there when stuck at an airport or, heaven forbid, on the airplane.

But even when fully on the ground, you often find yourself in situations where it's difficult to find good coffee. One of the dirty secrets of people who travel in the coffee industry is that coffee in coffee producing countries is not good. To begin with, all the good stuff gets exported. Local coffee is generally floor-sweepings and rejects. Even in places where there is a strong local coffee culture (and therefore some of the good stuff stays in the local market), like in Ethiopia, there's still no guarantee you'll get a decent cup. It's just like in the USA — there's good and there's bad and you can't always control what you get.

When I travel I always take a small french press, like the kind seen here (I use the fiberglass "unbreakable" one for obvious reasons). It's small, it's elegant, and it's functional.

Also interesting are these travel presses. But I prefer to drink out of a real cup like a civilized person, and anywhere you go in the world, there's always a cup, yes? The travel presses would be good for driving, I suppose, or maybe camping (but really... is it that hard to bring a tin cup?)

If it's a short trip, I will pre-grind some fresh roasted coffee and store it in a ziplock bag. If it's a longer trip, I will take some ground coffee to get me through the first few days, and some whole bean coffee for later. If you look hard enough, you can always find a way to get your coffee ground. If I'm working a coffee job, I impose upon the people I am working with. If not, I hang out at the local café and make a friend on the staff.

If you bring fresh coffee and a way to prepare it, the only consistent problem you will have will be getting water that is hot enough. I learn how to say "really, really hot water" in the local language (in Amharic: "bet'am bet'am mook ooha"), but it still usually takes a while for a hotel staff to get it right. People often think you want water that has been boiled (at some time in the past, for health reasons), rather than water that is literally boiling hot. At the cozy little hotel I have stayed at many times in San Salvador, they know me as "hot water man." What a pleasure it was to have the woman who does the cooking there bring me super hot water as soon as I sat down at the breakfast table last time.

Uusally I do my best to blend in when I travel. But of course making your own coffee at the table is strange, whether you are in Addis Ababa or Alabama. It tends to make one stick out a little.